An Elusive Spark
by SmashQueen
Summary: "That's right," he said, smiling. "You didn't! You thought you could play all day in your little lab and help people! You really thought you could change things!" Flowey bared his teeth and his eyes widened menacingly. "You idiot!" Prompt fill.


Canon compliant. I've never written a Flowey piece like this before. This is going to hurt.

Part of a collection of prompts that I decided to upload by itself.

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The dull roar of waterfalls enveloped him among the flowers. The patch was small, barely anything at all, but it was a place to hide and think away from the rest of the morons in the Underground. The Ruins were small and everyone knew everyone, Snowdin Forest was freezing, Hotland was blistering, and New Home was where the soft-hearted hypocrite lived. Waterfall might have been damp and full of monsters, but few ventured so far into the dump. It was a Wednesday, too, so Catty and Bratty wouldn't be scavenging there. Alphys would be coming by for a few hours though. She would stare down into the abyss for seventy-two minutes, then head back to her lab, tail between her legs like the failure she was.

Flowey swatted a golden flower. What a pathetic monster. She claimed to have built a robot with a SOUL, something the old fool fell for and called "groundbreaking". He chose her to be the royal scientist for her _brilliance, _then when she failed to deliver on her promises, she _lied_ and wallowed in her failures instead of _moving on. _

What an _idiot_!

Flowey stretched his roots, seeing how far he could reach the rest of the flower patch. He couldn't fault Alphys for trying something new. That was what he tried every day! Every year! But she didn't bother to get back up and try again. She preferred watching human anime and constantly making posts on the undernet.

How boring could you get?!

Unfortunately, his best efforts had resulted in her either shutting herself up in the lower lab or awkwardly fumbling her way through a confession for Undyne. By role-playing. With him.

Admittedly, he may have botched the role-play once or twice. Undyne was fierce and intense so _of course_ she wouldn't stand for cowardice. _Of course _she wouldn't stand for lying. _Of course_ she wouldn't like the idea of Alphys's experiments resulting in a living flower that _couldn't feel anything! _

_Snapsnapsnap._ In a flurry of dirt and golden flowers, the flower bed ripped apart, his roots rising up from furrows in the soft ground. Flowey idly took in the destruction then used two nearby roots to shrug. It didn't matter. Nothing ever really did. Anything and everything he did would be RESET once he was tired of the current timeline.

Once in a while he thought he felt something that wasn't anger or boredom. A spark where his SOUL would be. It was always brief, but that tiny moment where he _felt something _was always exciting.

If he couldn't feel happiness, if he couldn't feel _love, _then he would take the next best thing, no matter what it was.

No matter how many tries it took.

Because he was filled with Determination.

Because he had no compassion.

No _hope. _

Something sparked, then flared inside Flowey. He growled, then grabbed one of the broken flowers littering the platform with one of his roots. He whipped it back and flung it as far as he could into the water. Then he threw another. And another. He tore a fourth in two and plucked the head off a fifth. That _stupid _lizard! If the pathetic monster wanted to jump, _then she should just jump already! _

Flowey twisted his face into one that _they _would have been proud of. The flowers couldn't feel anything either, but they weren't _alive _like he was.

They didn't matter.

Flowey ripped and tore every flower he could get his roots on. Stems, petals, and moist dirt flew through the air then plopped into the murky garbage water. Stupid Alphys. Stupid _Asgore. _He had _died. _He had _suffered. _And what did he get?

_This miserable existence! _

A sharp crack echoed. His roots burrowed into the surrounding walls and broke them open. Tiny cracks at first, but he wriggled his roots around, wincing, found fractures, and made the holes bigger.

Before he knew it, he was screaming. He screamed at Alphys and her worthless attempts to save the Underground only to result in melded monsters and a flower that couldn't return love. At Asgore for killing the humans who dared to fall after _them. _At _her _for daring to replace him with humans she couldn't even protect.

At himself for daring to believe there could be any good left in the Underground.

Flowey screamed until his throat hurt.

He screamed until he ran out of things to say.

He screamed until it was a primal, wordless thing of fury that bounced off the walls.

Because nobody would come.

They never did.

Clicking. Stuttering.

Flowey turned away from the carnage of the walls and the brownish water, blinking. There, standing at the spot he knew she would for seventy-two minutes was the royal screw up herself.

Alphys backed away, shaking. "I… I…"

Flowey tilted his head. This had never happened before. Usually his venting was uninterrupted. He would LOAD sometimes to erase any evidence, but never had he been caught before leaving.

Interesting, but…

"Golly!" he said, cheerfully. "I didn't know anybody else was around!"

Alphys shook her head. "I- I- I didn't know! I didn't…"

Oh shoot. Maybe he could try defusing the situation?

But then… What did he owe her?

"That's right," he said, smiling. "You didn't! You thought you could play _all _day in your little lab and help people! You _really _thought you could change things!" Flowey bared his teeth and his eyes widened menacingly. "You _idiot_!"

Green roots swarmed towards the scientist. Alphys yelped, turned on her heel, and ran.

A bullet hit her shoulder. A root slammed into her back. Alphys yelped and tripped over another root.

_Splash. _

And then she was gone.

Just like that.

Flowey blinked, his roots going slack. Alphys… He hadn't meant to dust her. He only wanted to scare her! To teach her a lesson! He hadn't meant to... to make her fall.

But he had and he…

He felt nothing.

He knew he should feel something towards her. Anything. Pity. Regret. Guilt.

But there was nothing. He couldn't feel bad about this.

Yet… He did feel something. A spark where his SOUL should be. Before he could place the feeling, it was gone.

Like her.

It had been easy.

So easy.

Part of him said to RESET. To LOAD. To reverse her dusting and go back to how things were. He was good. He tried to do good. Wasn't that the right thing to do?

But the other, louder part of himself said no. It said to wait.

It said to see what happened next.

He could reverse things later. See where the timeline went. Find out what happened next.

After all, he could set things back to how they were. Like with the flower bed.

Curious, Flowey ducked into the ground, and sped away towards Hotland. The monsters there would notice her missing first.

Just this once, he told himself. Just this once. Then he could go back to...figuring out what else to do Underground.

Again.


End file.
